A new ethics for understanding the social forces that shape moral character. It is easy to be vicious and difficult to be virtuous in today’s world, especially given that many of the social structures that connect and sustain us enable exploitation and disincentivize justice. There are others, though, that encourage virtue. In his book Daniel J. Daly uses the lens of virtue and vice to reimagine from the ground up a Catholic ethics that can better scrutinize the social forces that both affect our moral character and contribute to human well-being or human suffering. Daly’s approach uses both traditional and contemporary sources, drawing on the works of Thomas Aquinas as well as incorporating theories such as critical realist social theory, to illustrate the nature and function of social structures and the factors that transform them. Daly’s ethics focus on the relationship between structure and agency and the different structures that enable and constrain an individual’s pursuit of the virtuous life. His approach defines with unique clarity the virtuous structures that facilitate a love of God, self, neighbor, and creation, and the vicious structures that cultivate hatred, intemperance, and indifference to suffering. In doing so, Daly creates a Catholic ethical framework for responding virtuously to the problems caused by global social systems, from poverty to climate change.

A comprehensive philosophical treatment of the virtues and their competing vices. The first four sections focus on historical classes of virtue: the cardinal virtues, the capital vices and the corrective virtues, intellectual virtues, and the theological virtues. A final section discusses the role of virtue theory in a number of disciplines.

A Pocket Guide to Goodness Few writers have inspired more readers than author C. S. Lewis -- both through the enchanting volumes of his children's series and through his captivating adult classics such as Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, The Great Divorce, and numerous others. Drawn from many works, this volume collects dictionary-like entries of Lewis's keenest observations and best advice on how to live a truly good life. From ambition to charity, despair to duty, hope to humility, Lewis delivers clear, illuminating definitions to live by.

Positive psychology is one of the biggest growth industries in the discipline of psychology. At the present time, the subfield of 'positive education' seems poised to take the world of education and teacher training by storm. In this first book-length philosophical study of positive psychology, Professor Kristján Kristjánsson subjects positive psychology's recent inroads into virtue theory and virtue education to sustained conceptual and moral scrutiny. Professor Kristjánsson's interdisciplinary perspective constructively integrates insights, evidence and considerations from social science and philosophy in a way that is easily accessible to the general reader. He offers an extended critique of positive psychology generally and 'positive education' in particular, exploring the philosophical assumptions, underpinnings and implications of these academic trends in detail. This provocative book will excite anyone interested in cutting-edge research on positive psychology and on the virtues that lie at the intersection of psychology, philosophy of mind, moral philosophy, education, and daily life.

This sweeping, comparative study of taxation in the United States and Australia shows that even as governments in the Western world have become increasingly sophisticated tax collectors, a competitive and ruthless market in advice on tax avoidance has developed. The same competitive forces in the late twentieth century which have driven down prices and sparked efficiencies in the production of fast food or computer parts have helped stimulate the markets for "bads" like tax shelters and problem gambling. Braithwaite draws the surprising conclusion that effective regulation could actually flip markets in vice to markets of virtue. Essential reading for anyone involved in policy, governance, and regulation, Markets in Vice, Markets in Virtue provides a blueprint for restoring the equity of Western tax systems and a breakthrough theory of how regulators can support markets in virtue and curtail markets in vice.

Teaching Character and Virtue in Schools addresses the contemporary issues of quantification and measurement in educational settings. The authors draw on the research of the Jubilee Centre at the University of Birmingham in order to investigate the concern that the conventional wisdom, sound judgement and professional discretion of teachers is being diminished and control mistakenly given over to administrators, policymakers and inspectors which in turn is negatively effecting pupils’ character development. The books calls for subject competence to be complemented by practical wisdom and good character in teaching staff. It posits that the constituent virtues of good character can be learned and taught, that education is an intrinsically moral enterprise and that character education should be intentional, organised and reflective. The book draws on the Jubilee Centre’s expertise in support of its claims and successfully integrates the fields of educational studies, psychology, sociology, philosophy and theology in its examination of contemporary educational practices and their wider effect on society as a whole. It offers sample lessons as well as a framework for character education in schools. The book encourages the view that character education is about helping students grasp what is ethically important and how to act for the right reasons so that they can become more autonomous and reflective individuals within the framework of a democratic society. Particularly interested readers will be educational leaders, teachers, those undertaking research in the field of education as well as policy analysts with a keen interest in developing the character and good sense of learners today.

Daly uses the lens of virtue and vice to reimagine a Catholic ethics that can better scrutinize the social forces that both affect our moral character and contribute to human well-being or human suffering, creating a framework to respond virtuously to problems caused by global social systems, from poverty to climate change.